Get, Slate, Go - I

This is a sort of second coming that ageing film-stars and out-of-work models would long for. The tablet was an all-but-dead product category, one that never really got off the ground sales-wise, despite the big push from Microsoft way back in 2002. But with the iPad, Apple's wiped the slate clean, opening up the flood gates for a slew of contenders that promise to revitalize an almost obsolete form factor, or to say, completely change the way we interact with our computers. Here's a small peek at what on the cards in 2010.

HP Slate :Squint a little, and you could easily confuse the HP Slate with the Apple iPad. With a similar sleek profile and a large 8.9 inch capacitive display, it almost is. But it runs on the touch-enabled Windows 7 platform. Along with the netbook specs, it supports Flash and has got multi-tasking capabilities which the iPad lacks. It also packs in 2 built-in cameras (front and back) along with video recording. Looks like HP has all he iPad's bases covered, and then some more.

Notion Ink Adam :Here's one from my country, India. Notion Ink, a small Indian start-up is talking big with the Adam. This Android based slate not only boasts of a sleek design, but also of the 1 GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 chip that acts both as a chip and a graphics card, allowing you to playback videos at 1080p on the 10 onch display. The real genius is he Pixel Qi screen which can switch from backlit LCD mode for web browsing to a low-power electrophoretic reflective mode for power saving (16 hours) and becomes easier on the eyes.

Fusion Garage JooJoo :
This is from the Singapore-based Fusion garage. Other than iPad, JooJoo is the only other slate that is commercially available at the moment. With a 12 inch screen this Intel Atom/Nvidia ion powered tablet promises full Flash HD and a decent interface over the custom Linux platform. But it misses out in many things - No Apps, no multi-tasking, no e-books and a 5 hour battery life.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

After revealing that a new Twitter interface is to be launched in the near future, here's some more news about Twitter. They are planning to provide a free analytics dashboard to it's users that will help users to understand how others are interacting with their tweets.

The analytics tool is being worked upon by the team which was behind Trendly (acquired by Twitter in June).

Even though this is believed to be a free tool, but there may be a much more advanced version of this tool which will be for business purposes and that won't be free of cost.

The bad news is that there are many other companies that are working or have the same kind of analytics tool for Twitter, but they are not free. So these companies will have to work hard to compete with Twitter's analytics tool on Twitter's own turf. Isn't it interesting?

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Do you have to take a lot of trouble in protecting your computer peripherals from your child or your pet? Then here is a small solution for you.

The Stealth KYBX-400-DT-BL-TB-USB Keyboard (that's quite a name to remember) is sealed to the NEMA 4, 4X, IP65 specifications (these are two different test grading systems, that's all I can say). But it's rugged enough for military use, so it will easily do the job against pets and small children. It is housed in a rugged vandal resistant stainless steel enclosure, has an optical trackball and features adjustable backlighting.

But this comes at a price - $695. So some strict discipline and patience with your child can be a whole lot cheaper alternative.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

As the title says, the iPhone PC Suite is an alternative to the iTunes. It works only on Windows along with a jailbroken iPhone. It has got some cool features which, in my opinion, makes it a better option than the iTunes.

Download & Upload pics to and from PC and iPhone

Calendar

Contacts

Photos- works 100% in FULL resolution. (upload / download)

Notes

eBook

Call log

SMS Chat- works 100%, send SMS to someone from PC through iPhone

Safari, bookmark management

Finder

Backup/Restore

Sound Themes

Ringtones – You can create them and sync with iTunes.

iPhone PC Suite is completely free, and it easily syncs the devices (the iTunes sometimes has synchronization problems).

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Archos, long the benchmark for portable media players,are making a play for the red-hot tablet market with a series of Android based tablets.

There's something for everybody with devices ranging from small personal media player like devices with 2.8 or 3.2 inch touchscreeens and then going up to the7 inch and 10.1 inch touchscreen high end tablets. These will ship with the latest Android 2.2 "Froyo" version.

Only some of these devices will have the more touch-friendly capacitive screen and a front facing camera. They lack the all important applications, but make up in media playback capabilities.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

So it's already September, and it's time to thank all those who took the time to visit this blog. I know I am guilty of missing some days to drop back, but I try to drop on all the blogs with a custom widget. I have already mentioned that I will not drop on blogs with the default Entrecard widget. Further, I will also not accept ads with the default widget. And it's not only me, I guess all the experienced EC users are doing the same thing. Am I wrong?
Anyway, here's some link-love to my regular droppers. I must admit that Sheila is doing a great job with all her blogs. It's for the third time in a row that she's getting the top spot again.

Now the problem is that because of a hard disk change, I have lost all the data about this theme, so I will need some time to find out how to change the 125x125 banners. Even though Sheila's Slightly Sarcastic should have got that spot, but I have decided to keep her other blog, The Ad Master for another month.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Is it a mouse? Or a calculator? Or is it a superman? Hmmm....I think this is a superman among the computer pointing devices.

Canon's X Mark I mouse is the first mouse to wear the legendary X series calculator's brand. With 1200-dots-per-inch wireless laser mouse underneath, the X mark I does double duty as a fully functional calculator and a numeric keypad. It's a Bluetooth 2.0 enabled device, and works well with OS X and Windows. If there was a mouse built to the exact opposite spec as Apple devices, this is it.

And yes, all those numeric buttons can be locked when not in use to prevent accidental stream of number from flooding your documents.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Recently, some pictures of Nokia's forthcoming phone, N9, got leaked. The pictures tell that it will have an attractive aluminium clad design with black keys, something similar to the Macbooks. And now we even have some specifications available. Take a look at them -

OS : most probably MeeGo.

Screen : 4 inch capacitive super AMOLED

Processor : 1 GHz Snapdragon processor with 512 MB of RAM

Storage : 64 GB internal

Camera : 8 MP with dual LED flash, capable of HD video recording 720p

Connectivity : Almost everything.

Well, these are leaked ones, and accuracy is not guaranteed. But I hope these give a basic idea about what we can expect.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

After a good success with the Galaxy S, Samsung is moving forward with it's next phone in the Galaxy series, the Galaxy U. The specifications of theGalaxy U has been released, and it looks very stylish. That square "back" key looks similar to the key on my Samsung Star 3G.

What I really wanted to know is that whether it's camera will get a flash or not (the Galaxy S missed that badly), but no pictures has yet been leaked showing the back side. More will be known as more things get leaked. Stay tuned.

Sunday, August 8, 2010

With the iPad yet to be officially launched in India and the Notion Ink Adam taking it's sweet time, Olive Telecom launched India's first official tablet - the OlivePad VT100. The OlivePad is available in all Croma stores from eh first week of August (well, I am a bit late in posting this).

So what exactly can a customer expect from the OlivePad. Let's have a look at the features -

To start with, it has a 7 inch capacitive touchscreen.

It runs on the Android OS.

It is 3G enabled along with WiFi (but we don't have 3G facility in India yet. Come on, give me a break...when are we going to have 3G for the private carriers????)

It has dual cameras, a 3 MP at he back and a front camera for video calling.

GPS, e-book reader and web browsing with Flash support are some of the other features.

It's price is about Rs. 25000 INR (which corresponds to about $500 approx). And there are talks that it will be launched in Europe in the near future.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Here are the three quick updates about three essential things relates to blogging and technology.

Firefox 4 Beta 2

I guess you have already heard about Mozilla's release of the latest browser. After the buggy and highly unstable Beta 1 version, now they have Firefox 4 Beta 2. The most important change to this version is the inclusion of "App Tabs". This allows the user to change regular tabs into compact tabs which prevent accidental deletion of these tabs.

Further, it organizes websites in stacked layers with cached content for further web browsing. But still, the Beta 2 is unstable in performance, thanks to the "beta" tag added to it.

WordPess 3.0.1

Now here's something for bloggers, I mean, those who do not use Blogger or Jhoomla or TypePad. After about 11 million downloads of the WordPress 3.0 in just 42 days, we finally have the next update version, WordPress 3.0.1 . It claims to fix 53 bugs o the previous version. Well, I haven't updated yet...I am waiting for feedbacks from other users. But I guess this will be a smooth update because it's just a minor one. have you updated? Please leave your feedbacks.

Digg v4

The new Digg has been there for quite some time now in the beta stage. Only a very few people were allowed to access the new version (and I was one of them). The interface looked excellent, and in short, it is much more social (don't forget that Digg is a social bookmarking site). But since it is in beta, the New Digg doesn't have the Digg Bar yet, and links do not open in a new tab. So digging is a bit frustrating at the moment.

Anyway, the good news is that they are allowing the present members to sent invites to their friends ( at the most 5 invites). So if you want to be a part of the New Digg, you can ask for an invite here. If you do, then also provide a link to your old Digg's profile because I will review your activity on Digg first before sending the invite.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

So it's already August (I was not aware of this unless I saw some posts on other blogs thanking their top EC droppers). For the month of July, I myself could not break in in any of those lists on other blogs. But visitors on my blog has been very consistent. A big THANK YOU to all the visitors here and congrats to the following ten blogs and bloggers for being in the top 10 for July -

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Previously, I have written about the Adam, a tablet which is being built by an Indian company, Notion Ink. But recently, according to Indian Express, Human Resource Department minister of India, Mr. Kapil Sibal revealed a tablet-like device (seems to be a 7 incher) which is in the developmental stage at the moment.

More About the Device
It will be a Linux-based, open source device with a touchscreen of 5/7/9 inches. It will have th basic features like office software, web browser, multimedia capabilities, PDF Reader and also video conferencing.

The Best Part Of The Story
Here comes the best thing about this device. The title of this post says that it is the cheapest tablet. And indeed it is (err...will be). It is estimated that in the beginning, it will cost around $35. It is believed that the price will drop further, ultimately to $10.
So, how will people accept this "Poor Man's Tablet" ?Will every citizen own a touchscreen device? We will have to wait and see.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Hello everyone!
My last post was a bit strict one, but this one is about a request. I need some help this time, specially from the Entrecard community. To make things more clear, I have entered a blog contest with huge prizes at stake. Have a look at the prizes here.

But I am a bit late in entering the contest as the last date is July 25. So my contest entry has got only 2 more days to gain popularity. That's why I need some help. So if you can, please visit my contest entry "6 Do's For Blog Marketing With Twitter Fail" and all you have to do is retweet the post (my contest entry). There's already a Tweetmeme button provided. And it will be great if you can leave a comment.

Another thing to note : The score for popularity of the entry is only 30%. The rest 70% depends on the quality of the article. But still, 30% can make a huge difference.
I hope to get some help from the EC community. Have a great day.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Hello Entrecard users...this is a short post specially for the EC advertisers on my blog.

Till date I haven't rejected a single ad request on this blog (even though I have rejected some on my other blog). But then, with so many cards using the default EC widget, it forced me to re-think my strategy of accepting all ads.

So from this today, I am going to reject all ad requests which use the default EC widget. I am also going to reject ads with indecent pictures.

Further, about dropping ECs, I will also try to drop less on the blogs which use the default EC widget.
Now the question is, why are you using the default thing? If tou are really serious about using the Entrecard system, why don't you upload a meaningful picture? That will also help to brand your blog. Now it's upto you. If you are reading this and using a default widget, THINK AGAIN.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

The Symbian Foundation has posted the first handful of home screen UI shots of the Symbian^4 showing redesigned widgets, app categories and search, pop-up menus, and a standard-issue numeric touchscreen keypad.

Even though Nokia is going to use MeeGo in all the devices now (with N8 being the last to run on Symbian 3), it is expected that they will develop some devices on the Symbian^4 platform in the early 2011.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Within a month of launching the iPhone 4, Apple has (or was forced to) release the iOS 4.1 for the developers. Unfortunately, the antenna issue has not been fixed yet by the software update.

But that's not the end. Apple has called for a special press conference on July 16, that is, today. The conference will be regarding the iPhone (may be the antenna issue and the software updates). So we will have to wait for the outcome of the conference.

Behind This Blog

A college student, studying Computer Applications. I love gadgets and am fascinated by the progress of modern technology. Just trying to share some of the things I get to know.You can also get to see me as "Titan" in the blogosphere.